Nine:
An International Community

The
Peoples of the Region

"A
man is all sorts of baggage,
the most difficult to be
transported," wrote Scotland’s
Adam Smith in the 18th century.
Yet, as history indicates,
between 1880 and 1914, millions
of people left their homelands
in search of greater economic
opportunity, freedom and
peace. The migration from
Europe to North America
in that period has been
described as "the mightiest
movement of people in modem
history." Western Canada
be-came the destination
of several million immigrants,
not only from Europe but
from other parts of the
world, who were attracted
by the promises of a better
life in the "Last Best West."
The result was a unique
model of ethno-cultural
cooperation without assimilation.
As the years passed and
the dust from arriving newcomers
settled, and after often
bitter experiences of adaptation,
prejudice and discrimination,
a truly international community
has developed in the region.

The
mosaic analogy is particularly
apt for Western Canada because
literally dozens of ethnic
groups today resemble inlays
of differing size, distribution
and colour in a larger design.
Their diversity of language,
dress, culture and custom
has created a kaleidoscope
in our West and North. The
term ‘mosaic’ itself was
first applied to Canada
by an American writer, Victoria
Hayward, who wrote of our
Prairies in 1922, "The New
Canadians, representing
many lands and widely separated
sections of Old Europe,
have contributed to the
prairie provinces a variety
in the way of Church architecture.
Cupolas and domes distinctly
Eastern, almost Turkish,
startle one above the tops
of Manitoba maples or the
bush of the river banks....
Here and there in the corner
of a wheat field, at the
cross-section of a prairie
highway, one sees, as in
Quebec, the tall, uplifted
Crucifix set up. It is indeed
a mosaic of vast dimensions
and great breadth, essayed
of the Prairie."

Since
the beginning of the twentieth
century, Western Canada
has continued to develop
its culturally pluralistic,
multi-political and multi-religious
form. This is partly because
no cultural community is
numerically dominant; there
are several large groups,
including the English, German,
Ukrainian, Scottish, Irish
and French-Canadians. Members
of every cultural community,
including the larger ones,
believe people are of equal
worth and that all should
have the freedom to choose
their own life-style. A
pattern of permissive differentiation,
whether in religion, political
ideology or language, instead
of assimilation, emerged
early in the West and set
very firmly. More than in
any other region of Canada,
multiculturalism began as
an acknowledged reality
here and flourished as the
decades went by.

The
prairie population grew
from about 400,000 in 1901
to 2.4 million by 1931.
A passenger on a CPR train
disembarking in Winnipeg
in 1914 would encounter
on Main Street languages
and people from virtually
every corner of the earth.
As the historian Gerald
Friesen points Out, "almost
half of all prairie residents
at the start of the First
World War had been born
in another country, and
the proportion was still
one in three as late as
1931. Those who were British
by ‘origin’ (a census term
defined by the ancestral
roots of a family’s male
line) had similarly declined
to about 50% of the prairie
total (of this group, half
were English, one-quarter
Scots) while the various
Eastern European groups
(Ukrainian, Austro-Hungarian,
Polish and Russian) numbered
about 20%, and Western Europeans
(German, Dutch, French,
including French Canadians)
also numbered about 20%."

Five
separate waves of immigrants
swept over Western Canada.
The first, resulting from
the fur trade, created the
French-and English-speaking
Métis. The second, occurring
during the final years of
the nineteenth century after
Confederation, consisted
mainly of British Canadian
families, although there
were also Icelanders, Mennonites,
Jews and others. The largest
wave swept in between 1897
and 1913, bringing roughly
equal numbers of settlers
from other provinces of
Canada, Britain, America
and Continental Europe together
with a few Chinese and Japanese.
The fourth, arriving during
the 1920s, was essentially
an extension of the third
in terms of points of origin.
The fifth, persons arriving
since World War II, included
Europeans displaced by the
war and, after 1962, immigrants
from Asia and the Pacific
Rim nations.

Clifford
Sifton and his belief in
the potential of the West
deserve much credit for
the diversity and vigour
of the immigrants who came
between 1897 and 1930. As
immigration minister from
1896 to 1905, he spent large
sums of public money attracting
farmers from Europe, Britain
and America. Although he
personally believed in the
assimilation of newcomers
to Anglo-Canadian norms,
no one can fault him for
not casting his net to include
farm communities virtually
everywhere, most notably
in Central and Eastern Europe.
His successor as immigration
minister, Edmonton’s Frank
Oliver, reduced recruiting
in Europe and increased
it in the United Kingdom.
In consequence, more British
immigrants came after 1905,
including an astonishing
80,000 children from English
slums whose passages were
assisted by British charities.
Robert Borden’s Conservative
government kept the immigration
door open to unskilled English
immigrants after 1911 but
continued a Laurier regulation
measure of 1908 which in
practice excluded most Asians
and Arabs. In 1925, Prime
Minister Mackenzie King
allowed the Canadian National
and Canadian Pacific Railways
again to recruit farmers
in Central and Eastern Europe;
as a result, almost 370,000
Europeans arrived in Canada
during the following six
years. Between 1931 and
1941, the immigration gates
were all but closed to everyone
as a reaction to the huge
unemployment created by
the Great Depression.

By
the time of the 1986 national
census, the population mix
of the four western provinces
was significantly different
from that of Canada as a
whole. In all three prairie
provinces less than forty
percent of the residents
claim a single country of
family origin from Britain
or France. British Columbia
is slightly over forty percent,
whereas in Ontario and all
four Atlantic provinces
well over forty percent
of the residents assert
a single family origin from
the British Isles. In three
of them (Nova Scotia, Prince
Edward Island and Newfoundland)
that proportion is over
sixty percent. In the profiles
which follow, I will highlight
the diversity of Western
Canadians through glances
at a number of ethnocultural
communities. The sketches
feature some of those who
have arrived relatively
recently but are already
making a major contribution
to the West, along with
groups of longer standing.
All have had to meet in
some measure the challenges
of pioneering and all have
responded in their own "Western"
way.

More
than seventy distinct ethno-cultural
groups can now be identified’
in Western Canada. To tell
their respective stories
within a framework of one
chapter is thus impossible.
While attempting to provide
an overview of the almost
infinite variety of the
region, I am forced to focus
on only some representative
groups which in my opinion
reflect well the essence
of the other Western Canadian
communities today. The singular
history of the Métis people
in Western Canada was recorded
in an earlier chapter. In
addition to the Métis, those
groups chosen for discussion
here appear to me to capture
the pioneering spirit of
all the first westbound
settlers who came, or are
coming, to start their lives
anew. The chapter concludes
with a discussion of the
role of bilingualism in
a multicultural region.

Scandinavians

Our
region is home to almost
80% of all Canadians who
claim Scandinavian ancestry:
130,000 Westerners are descended
entirely from Danes, Norwegians,
Swedes, or Icelanders, while
another 380,000 have some
Scandinavian forebears.
Most Canadian Westerners
of Scandinavian origin came
to the West as American
immigrants between 1893
and 1914, when nearly a
hundred thousand moved to
the Canadian Prairies. Many
of them settled in fertile
parts of central Alberta
and Saskatchewan, where
they became major players
in the formation of the
dairy industry. From the
beginning, Anglo-Westerners
viewed all Scandinavians
as close cousins. This was
encouraged by such familiar
images as Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Relations between the historical
monarchs of Norway and Scotland
were so close that Scotland’s
Hebrides held the tombs
of eight Norwegian kings.
And Hans Christian Anderson’s
fairy tales were as dear
to Anglo-Canadian children
as to Scandinavian ones.

Scandinavians
were among the first settlers
who ventured into the North-West
at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. The
earliest Norwegians were
brought by Lord Selkirk
in 1815 to build a portage
for his Selkirk colony on
the Red River. At the north
end of Lake Winnipeg they
established Norway House,
which remains a commercial
centre to this day. One
Norwegian, Peter Dahl, stayed
to homestead. During the
mid-l9th century, the Hudson’s
Bay Company continued to
recruit boatmen from Norway,
but the first large influx
came later from the south.
Between 1871 and 1895, 660,000
Swedes, 330,000 Norwegians
and 160,000 Danes reached
the United States. Most
of them settled in the Midwest,
although many had arrived
first in Montreal by steamship.

When
the price of American farmland
later began to rise, the
promise of free homesteads
in the Canadian West brought
many Scandinavians northwards.
The first group were Swedes
who settled near Minnedosa,
Manitoba, and Stockholm,
Saskatchewan, in the 1880s.
Norwegians in turn founded
Numedal in southern Manitoba,
and New Norway, Camrose,
Olds, Lacombe, Wetaskiwin,
Sundre and other centres
in Alberta in the mid-1890s.
Calgary’s first major industry,
a sawmill run by a predominantly
Norwegian crew, was founded
in 1886. Another group of
Norwegian fisherman founded
Hagensborg in 1893 near
Bella Coola on the British
Columbia coast. Most Scandinavians
settled in Saskatchewan
during the early twentieth
century. Their practical
experience in the American
Midwest proved an excellent
training for success in
the age of wheat.

Icelanders
began to arrive in Manitoba
in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century from
an island homeland where
entire villages had been
swept away by volcanoes.
In 1875, a group of them
chose to settle in Gimli
("paradise") on the shores
of Lake Winnipeg for various
reasons, including freedom
from prairie grasshoppers,
an easy waterway to Winnipeg,
an abundance of fish in
the lake and the availability
of a large tract of land.
The new settlement, with
its own administration and
Icelandic law, was called
"New Iceland," and about
1,200 people moved there.
They founded a school, churches
and an Icelandic-language
newspaper. A few years later,
Governor General Lord Dufferin
visited Gimli and in praising
the Icelanders noted that
each one of the new homes
he had entered contained
"a library of twenty or
thirty volumes; and I am
informed that there is scarcely
a child amongst you who
cannot read and write."
In time, many Icelanders
moved to Winnipeg; that
city and the province of
Manitoba remain the centre
of their settlement in Canada.
By 1986, still about half
of all Icelandic Canadians
continued to live in Manitoba,
and Vancouver attracted
a good portion of those
who left.

The
first Danes in Canada reached
Hudson’s Bay in 1619 when
their ship captain, Jens Munck, was looking for the
Northwest Passage to the
Orient. His attempt to found
New Denmark at what is now
Churchill, Manitoba, expired
when 61 crew members died
of scurvy, although Munck
and two others somehow managed
to sail back to Denmark.
At the beginning of the
twentieth century, Danish
settlers reached the Prairies
in response to the call
of Canadian Pacific Railway
land agents and publicity
in Denmark by the Canadian
government. In 1903, Danish
immigration from Nebraska
began when two Danes, Jens
and Henry Larsen, returned
from the Canadian prairies
to report rich forests and
grazing lands. Danish settlers
were equally successful
on the Prairies and transposed
from Denmark both their
system of agricultural cooperation
and training in Danish Folk
High Schools. In the 1950s,
a number of Danish professionals
came to settle in Western
Canadian cities. Difficulties
arose in maintaining the
Danish language and culture
beyond the first generation
because of the scattered
nature of the Danish population,
intermarriages with other
cultural communities, and
the fact that so many of
them had begun in the United
States to adapt to the North
American way of life.

Swedish
immigration to Central Canada
began in the 1850’s because
of famines and land shortages
in Sweden, but most immigrants
soon left for the milder
climate and readily available
farmland in the United States.
Later, many re-crossed the
frontier, some to work as
miners and lumberjacks and
others to help build the
Canadian Pacific Railway
line westward. Upon the
railway’s completion in
1885, Winnipeg became the
centre of Swedish immigration
for all of Canada. By 1911,
however, Alberta also had
significant Swedish populations
in Strathcona, Red Deer
and Medicine Hat. Saskatchewan
became the most popular
western province for Swedes
and by 1931 a quarter of
all Swedes in Canada lived
in the wheat province. With
the outbreak of World War
II, many prairie Swedes
relocated to British Columbia
to work in its war industries.
Today 62,000 Canadians with
Swedish origins live in
British Columbia.

The
Norwegian settlement in
Western Canada was prompted
by mounting debts and a
lack of land in the American
Midwest. The Canadian Prairies
offered a second chance
and many thousands moved
to Alberta and Saskatchewan.
In 1912, some of these moved
to Alberta’s Peace River
district around Valhalla
and were later joined by
others from further south
during the crop failure
of the 1930s. Many Norwegian-Canadians
on the Prairies remained
in farming occupations until
much of the prairie topsoil
simply blew away in the
1930s. Many were then forced
to move to other parts of
Canada or to return to Norway.
A number moved to the lower
mainland of British Columbia,
and by the 1986 census,
British Columbia had 54,000
part-origin and 20,000 sole-origin
Norwegian-Canadians, the
highest number for any province
in the country.

The
Scandinavians of Western
Canada adapted readily to
their surroundings and quickly
became part of rural and
later urban Western Canada
conditions. Today, they
are still playing vital
roles in the growth and
development of the region.

South
Asians

Western
Canadian South Asians include
people from India; Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and
Afghanistan, but also many
whose families were established,
often for generations, in
Africa and the Caribbean,
though having South Asian
roots. According to the
1986 census, Western Canada
contains approximately 110,000
sole-origin South Asians
and another 21,000 who claim
part South Asian family
beginnings.

The
cultural, religious and
linguistic backgrounds of
these communities are probably
even more diverse than the
heritage of their fellow
residents from Western and
Eastern Europe. India alone
has fifteen official languages
and a hundred or so minor
ones, several hundred million
Hindus, three times more
Muslims than there are Canadians,
and millions of Sikhs and
Christians.

Until
the 1960s, few South Asians
lived anywhere in Canada
beyond British Columbia.
The first to arrive in the
lower mainland in 1904 were
a group of self-reliant
Sikhs from the Punjab in
Northern India who had learned
of the province from Indian
soldiers passing through
Canada on their way to the
coronation of King Edward
VII in Britain. Relying
on the then well-established
principle that immigration
within the British Empire
must be unimpeded, other
Sikhs attempted to follow.
Future prime minister William
Lyon Mackenzie King, at
that time deputy minister
of labour, quickly devised
a way to get around this:
his 1908 order-in-council
prescribed that any immigrant
from India must reach Canada
on a "continuous voyage."
Since there was at the time
no direct steamship connection
between Canada and India,
Sikh immigration immediately
ended.

In
1914, a wealthy British
Columbia Sikh, Gurdit Singh,
challenged the regulation
by chartering the Komagata
Maru to bring about 400
Sikhs and Muslim Punjabis
to Canada. The ship was
forbidden by Canadian officials
to land in Vancouver and
the passengers were forced
to remain on board for two
months while the lawyers
argued that King’s regulation
violated both the Magna
Carta and the British North
America Act. This effort
ultimately failed, and the
arrival of a Canadian naval
cruiser alongside compelled
the would-be immigrants
to return to India. The
measure would bar virtually
all South Asians immigrants
to Canada until it was rescinded
in 1947.

In
1951, under pressure from
newly-independent India,
Pakistan and Ceylon, the
Louis St Laurent cabinet
agreed to some token immigration
from each of the three countries.
In 1967, under the government
of Prime Minister Lester
Pearson, the quota system
was finally replaced by
a point system which admitted
newcomers on the basis of
skills, education and economic
criteria. In consequence,
large numbers of South Asian
teachers, professors, medical
doctors and other professionals
settled in major western
cities during the 1960s
and 1970s.

Strong
family, religious and cultural
practices remain a distinctive
feature for South Asian
Westerners regardless of
their particular country
of origin. Marriages often
occur within the same community
and partners of both sexes
may come from the Indian
subcontinent. Most marriages
arranged by parents seem
to prove remarkably durable
and happy. Many South Asian
young people in the West
have adopted the general
lifestyle of other urbanites,
but also maintain their
traditional culture and
worship.

South
Asians are the most varied
of all ethno-cultural communities
in the West. Many are first-generation
Canadians and some worry
with good reason that discrimination
can deny them employment
opportunities commensurate
with their efforts and abilities.
On the optimistic side,
the passing of each year
provides a larger proportion
of South Asian Westerners
who arc long-term residents
of the region. The immigration
policies and practices which
kept a talented community
tiny for decades are now
gone or going. The chain
migration of family and
friends is growing, and
carries with it a range
of positive consequences.

Scots

According
to the 1986 census, almost
300,000 Westerners claimed
Scotland as their only place
of family origin and another
1.2 million persons included
it as one of their origins.
Scots are thus, along with
the English, Germans, Ukrainians,
French-Canadians and Irish,
among the largest communities
in the West. For the 1971
census, Statistics Canada
ignored centuries of distinct
Scottish history to group
them with the English, Irish
and Welsh as "British."
But Western Canadians of
Scottish origin felt entitled
to a separate treatment
of their ethnicity, settlement
and immigration, largely
because of their history
of antipathy toward England.
True, Scotland finally disappeared
as an independent nation
in 1707, but few Scots altered
their coolness toward London
thereafter and many maintained
close ties with Europe,
most notably France.

In
the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, moreover, had
not Scottish thinkers such
as David Hume and Adam Smith
completely reshaped English
thought in economics, philosophy,
and science? As the Manitoba
historian, J.M. Bumsted,
puts it, the "English might
have had the political power,
but Scots dominated the
life of the mind." A major
reason was the superiority
of Scotland’s educational
institutions and the insistence
of its reformers on achieving
both a fully literate population
and a curriculum which stressed
contemporary needs. Scotland’s
most important gift to Western
Canada and civilization
as a whole was probably
the concept of the "democratic
intellect" based on ability
rather than family financial
resources.

Another
Scottish gift to the world
was hundreds of thousands
of "surplus" people from
both the Highlands and Lowlands
of Scotland who helped to
populate many corners of
the world while romanticizing
their former homeland. The
first to reach Western Canada
arrived in Red River in
1812 through Hudson Bay,
under the sponsorship of
Lord Selkirk, to lay the
foundation of a new colony.
It grew until by 1820 it
was firmly rooted as the
first farming settlement
in the West. The Highland
clearances at the end of
the 18th century by absentee
landlords, who concluded
that cattle and sheep were
more profitable than tenant
farmers, produced thousands
of immigrants for Canada.
Crofters, whose homes had
been burned to ensure their
departure, responded particularly
well to advertisements for
free passage, free land
on arrival and free provisions
for a year.

Once
in Central Canada, the Scots
quickly established a reputation
for mutual support in religion,
politics, business and education,
and earnestness and honesty
in personal conduct. The
Scottish presence in the
West has been lengthy and
highly significant. Scots
such as Alexander Mackenzie,
Roderick Mackenzie, Simon
Fraser and James Macleod
tapped the West’s fur resources,
explored and mapped waterways,
and established many forts
and trading posts which
later became permanent settlements.

Approximately
240,000 Scots were among
the newcomers who arrived
in Canada during the first
fifteen years of the 20th
century. Another 200,000
came to Canada between 1919
and 1930; 147,000 more arrived
between 1946 and 1960. Many
came directly to farms and
cities of the West; some
stopped for a generation
in Atlantic or Central Canada
before moving to Western
Canada. Once here, most
western Scots gravitated
to cities and non-agricultural
employment. There has been
a good deal of assimilation
of Scots within the greater
Western Canadian community.
The use of Highland Gaelic
has all but disappeared;
memories of the "old country"
have faded for all but the
most recently arrived. On
the other hand, most Scots
in the West today still
consider themselves to be
a distinctive tile in the
western mosaic. Among themselves,
perhaps at the annual Robbie
Burns suppers, some will
even argue they have dominated
the economic, cultural and
political life of Western
Canada. Others will quickly
reply that Burns, that most
revered of Scots, would
mock such vain boasting!

Chinese

Immigration
to the West was largely
a movement from Europe --
through the ports of Eastern
and Central Canada, but
many people came through
British Columbia from the
nations of the Far East.
Among these are numbered
the Chinese, a group which
has participated in the
building of Western Canada
since the mid-19th century.

Western
Canada in 1986 had approximately
170,000 persons of solely
Chinese origin and about
22,000 more of partly Chinese
descent. Seven in ten single-origin
Chinese Western Canadians
live in British Columbia,
and fully 100,000 of these
reside in the Vancouver
area. A little less than
half of all Canadians of
single Chinese origin live
in the four western provinces,
the Yukon and Northwest
Territories.

Chinese
Canadians born outside Canada
have come from many countries.
The 1981 census shows that
in this group 24% were born
in Taiwan; 23% in China;
9% in Vietnam; 4% in Malaysia
or Singapore; and 34% elsewhere,
primarily Hong Kong. Eighty-seven
percent of those born outside
Canada entered Canada during
the 1965-81 period and in
recent years approximately
13,000 have entered Canada,
many from Hong Kong, as
entrepreneurs. The unemployment
rate for both Chinese men
and women was at the time
of the 1981 census less
than that for Canadian men
and women as a whole. Considerably
more Chinese Canadians (28%)
than all Canadians (16%)
have some university education.

Western
Canadians of Chinese origin
are part of the huge diaspora
of more than eight million
"overseas Chinese" who have
prospered from South Asia
to the Caribbean. As late
as the sixteenth century,
China had the highest standard
of living on earth. During
the eighteenth century,
its population more than
doubled, reaching 430 million
by 1850. When Europeans
forcibly opened China’s
markets in the 19th century,
its cottage cloth industry
was all but destroyed by
machine-made foreign cloth.
A migration of young men
became necessary to help
feed their closely-knit
families who were left at
home.

The
first of these men from
China came to British Columbia
in 1858, lured by the Fraser
River gold rush, and by
1860 approximately 4,000
of them lived in the lower
mainland of the colony.
Some mined, others sold
vegetables or wood, or operated
restaurants and laundries.
The legal equality in the
workplace of those who stayed
after the gold rush was
removed by the B.C. provincial
legislature in 1878 when
it unanimously resolved
that persons of origin in
China could no longer be
hired on provincial public
works -- a rule which astonishingly
remained in effect until
after World War II. The
franchise was denied to
them in 1872.

Nonetheless,
as many as 17,000 Chinese
came to B.C. between 1881
and 1884 to assume a Herculean
part in the completion of
the Canadian Pacific rail
line between the Fraser
Canyon and Vancouver. As
the project neared completion,
the B.C. provincial government
encouraged them to leave
the region through such
measures as a $10 head tax
on all Chinese, banning
the removal of dead bodies
back to China, denying Chinese
the right to buy provincial
Crown land, and prohibiting
further immigration from
China. Prime Minister Macdonald’s
government in Ottawa played
its part by imposing a $50
head tax on all Chinese
entering Canada after 1886.
In 1900, Prime Minister
Laurier raised the head
tax to $100, and in 1904
to $500. In 1923,
the government of Mackenzie
King barred all Chinese
immigration, and it did
not begin again until the
legislation was finally
repealed in 1947.

The
combination of legislated
and other discrimination
against the Chinese in British
Columbia and better opportunities
to establish small businesses
elsewhere in Canada, by
1921 had caused an estimated
40% of the 40,000 Chinese
then resident in Canada
to move eastward, some as
far as Newfoundland. Virtually
every prairie town soon
had a Chinese restaurant
and laundry. The three prairie
legislatures proved not
immune to anti-Chinese propaganda
seeping over the mountains.
The Saskatchewan assembly
disenfranchised Chinese
as early as 1908, which
meant in practice that they
could not vote in federal
elections either or join
professions whose associations
required members to be registered
voters. The prairie fever
here reached a sufficiently
high temperature that the
Saskatchewan and Manitoba
governments, even before
British Columbia’s, barred
Chinese restaurants from
hiring white women out of
a preposterous fear that
they would be introduced
to opium and sold into white
slavery.

Between
1924 and 1946, only eight
Chinese immigrants entered
Canada because of Mackenzie
King’s Chinese exclusion
law of 1923. Many of the
Chinese men already resident
in Canada thus aged without
families in Canada. Ironically,
events of World War II helped
the Canadian Chinese cause
because white Canadian sympathy
for China grew markedly
as a result of the Japanese
aggression there. As the
historians Jin Tan and Patricia
Roy point out, "[During
the war,] racial prejudice
be-came unfashionable."
The Vancouver Parks Board,
for example, repealed its
rule that Chinese persons
could swim at a public pool
only during a specified
two-hour period once weekly.
The legislature of Saskatchewan
restored the franchise in
1944 and in 1945 British
Columbia enfranchised everyone
who had served in either
World War, including the
Chinese but not the Japanese.
The public on the coast
generally welcomed the repeal
of Ottawa’s Chinese Immigration
Act in 1947.

In
fact, many Chinese Westerners
continued to face real difficulty
in entering Canada after
1947. With the violent events
accompanying the creation
of the People’s Republic
of China in 1949, some quite
understandably entered Canada
illegally. In 1962, a federal
amnesty was offered to illegal
immigrants of "good sound
character," and by the time
the program ended in 1973
more than 12,000 had changed
their status. Racial discrimination
in immigration officially
disappeared in 1967 when
new regulations began to
screen potential immigrants
on a "point system" which
reflected their prospective
economic contribution to
Canada. This put the Chinese
on an equal footing with
other immigrants. Between
1972 and 1978, almost 80%
of our Chinese immigrants
came from Hong Kong, most
choosing to live in suburbs
rather than in Chinatowns.
The so-called boat people
of 1979 and the early 1980’s
included Vietnamese, Laotians
and Cambodians as well as
Chinese, and among them,
Tan and Roy note, "were
urban professionals, both
men and women, once-wealthy
businessmen and persons
of influence in their own
countries as well as poor
illiterate peasants and
fisherfolk." The warm response
by Western Canadians and
Canadians generally contrasted
markedly with that given
to Chinese newcomers earlier.

Today,
a large number of Western
Canadians of Chinese origin
are entrepreneurs and professionals.
A majority of them are in
sales, services and other
white-collar work. Most
of them think of themselves
as Canadians first and Chinese
second. Alone among all
cultural groups in Canada,
however, they know that
their families were forced
to pay an entry fee (1885-1923)
and were effectively barred
from immigration by legislation
(1923-1947). Attitudes have
finally changed throughout
Canada and institutionalized
racism is gone. No longer
do whites expect them or
anyone to be "assimilated."
They can now preserve and
celebrate their cultural
identity and remain both
Canadian and Chinese in
whatever proportion they
choose.

Ukrainians

The
four western provinces hold
300,000, or approximately
three quarters, of all Canadians
who give their sole origin
as Ukrainian and 370,000,
or 68% of those who give
it as one of their family
origins. Most Westerners
originating in Ukraine came
in one of three waves. The
largest by far was the 1891-1914
migration of farmers from
Galicia and Bukovina, provinces
in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, who sought to escape
poverty, malnutrition, shrinking
landholdings, primitive
farming practices and growing
indebtedness. Thousands
of them took 160-acre homesteads
in Western Canada on paying
a $10 registration fee.
Clifford Sifton was genuinely
enthusiastic about immigrants
from Ukraine, and most of
the estimated 170,000 Ukrainians
who came before World War
I settled in the Canadian
Prairies. By 1921, Manitoba
had the largest Ukrainian
population in Canada, followed
by Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The hardships were great:
virgin land to break and
frequently forests to cut
by hand, a new language,
few roads or local improvements,
mammoth distances and farm
isolation, mosquitoes in
summer and bitter cold in
winter, nonexistent or rare
medical and social services.
Immigrants from Ukraine
were among the first settlers
who broke the land and helped
lay the foundation of the
region’s wealth. Therefore,
they are one of our founding
peoples, central to the
West’s beginnings.

The
1914-1918 period was complicated
for Ukrainians in Western
Canada because of prejudice
and discrimination on the
part of the dominant Anglo-Celtic
population. The federal
government enacted a number
of measures to segregate
and monitor the activities
of immigrants-from enemy
countries. Public hostility
and official sanctions were
directed at Germans and
Ukrainians, who were now
considered "enemy aliens."
The 1914 War Measures Act
led to the internment in
concentration camps of about
6,000 Austro--Hungarians,
the overwhelming majority
of whom were Ukrainians.
As Vera Lysenko notes in
Men In Sheepskin Coats,
during World War I,
"One repressive measure
followed another, directed
against bewildered Ukrainians.
Thousands of harmless ‘Galicians’
were rounded up by the police
and herded into concentration
camps.... The slightest
criticism on the part of
a Ukrainian and he was dragged
from home, factory or hotel
and placed in an internment
camp."

There
were other forms of suppression.
English-Ukrainian bilingual
classrooms on the Prairies
were abolished during the
war. Some Ukrainian publications
were censored or banned.
Most outrageous was the
Wartime Elections Act of
1917, which disenfranchised
every enemy alien naturalized
since 1902.

In
1918, an independent Ukrainian
state was proclaimed; it
survived only until 1920.
In 1922, most Ukrainian
territory was incorporated
into the Soviet Union, with
substantial segments of
population falling under
Polish, Czechoslovakian
or Romanian rule.

Almost
68,000 persons came to Canada
between the two world wars,
most from Galicia and Bukovina
as they had earlier. In
contrast to the first wave
of immigrants, the inter-war
Ukrainians were better educated
and more nationally conscious.
This group had a much easier
time in Western Canada because
immigrant aid societies
of the Ukrainian community
already present assisted
both financially and morally.
Tragically, Ukrainians were
dropped to a "non-preferred"
status by Ottawa during
the 1930s; this may have
prevented the escape to
Canada of at least some
of the estimated seven million
who were deliberately starved
to death by Stalin during
that period. Very few Ukrainians
managed to reach this country
until after World War II.

During
the Great Depression, Ukrainians
suffered at least as much
as any other group in Canadian
society. As jobs became
scarce, discrimination against
"foreigners" became a fearful
reality. The western historian
James Gray catches in his
Winter Years what
many non-Anglo-Saxon Westerners
faced during the 1930’s
in addition to the Great
Depression: "For them [Ukrainians,
Poles and Jews] Winnipeg
was far from being a city
of 250,000 in which they
too were free to search
for work. As much as two-thirds
of it was barred and bolted
against them.... Anyone
with a Ukrainian or Polish
name had almost no chance
of employment except rough
manual labour. The oil companies,
banks, mortgage companies,
financial and stock brokers,
and most retail and mercantile
companies except the Hudson’s
Bay Company discriminated
against all non-Anglo-Saxons.
For the young Ukrainians
and Poles there was a possible
solution if they could beat
the accent handicap. They
could change their names.
So they changed their names,
sometimes formally and legally,
but mostly informally and
casually."

During
World War II, an estimated
40,000 Ukrainians, or more
than ten percent of the
entire community in Canada,
enlisted in the Canadian
armed forces despite the
fact that one of our allies
(the USSR) had oppressed
their people for centuries.
After the war, many thousands
of Ukrainians who had been
deported to labour farms,
concentration camps or German
factories in Western Europe
simply refused to return
to Ukraine, which was then
entirely part of the Soviet
Union. A tragic repatriation
of many thousands was finally
stopped, and the remaining
refugees from Ukraine were
granted "displaced person"
status and resettled abroad.
The Ukrainian Canadian Committee
urged the King and St. Laurent
governments to accept refugees.
Between 1947 and 1953, approximately
34,000 Ukrainians came to
Canada, many well-educated
professionals.

A
major problem for Ukrainians
in Western Canada since
World War II has been the
declining use of their language.
Between 1951 and 1971, the
use of Ukrainian as a mother
tongue in the 0-9 age group
dropped from 61 to 21 percent.
In the 10-19 group, the
drop was even worse, from
85 to 30%. Finally, the
community pushed successfully
to have Ukrainian restored
as a language of study in
prairie schools. In Alberta
this was achieved in 1959;
in Manitoba, in 1961. By
the 1970s, all three prairie
provinces allowed Ukrainian
as a language of instruction
for up to half of the school
day. The community also
advocated a multicultural
Canada to the Royal Commission
on Bilingualism and Biculturalism
in the early 1960s. By 1971,
in large measure because
of pressure created by Western
Canadians of a non-British,
non-French background and
led by the Ukrainian Canadian
Committee, Canada became
for the first time a nation
with two official languages,
but no official culture.
A fuller recognition of
the culturally diverse nature
of Canada is still needed,
argue Ukrainian Canadians,
who as a group face the
possibility of assimilation
in Canada and russification
in Ukraine. The Ukrainian
Canadian Committee, a coalition
dedicated to democratic
principles, to promoting
Ukrainian cultural goals
in Canada and to supporting
the aspirations of Ukrainians
in the USSR, has led the
successful campaign to ensure
that their community is
not assimilated in Canada.

During
1988, Ukrainian communities
around the world are celebrating
the Millennium of the official
adoption of Christianity
in Ukraine. In 988, Volodymyr,
the Grand Prince of Kievan-Rus
(modern day Ukraine) had
the inhabitants of Kiev
baptised, thus bringing
his country into the Christian
fold. A thousand years later,
Christianity continues to
enrich the lives of the
people of Ukraine dispersed
throughout the world. During
the past 300 years, Ukraine
lost its independence and
there have been difficult
periods of government repression
in the Soviet Ukraine, but
the Ukrainian Church still
exists there, although clandestinely.

Having
survived against all conceivable
odds, Christianity would
appear yet to sustain the
hopes of the Ukrainian nation
and to serve as a source
of strength for millions
of Ukrainians living abroad.
Pope John Paul II observed
in a letter to the late
Ukrainian Catholic Cardinal
Josyf Slipyi: "...When Ukrainian
sons and daughters leave
their own country, they
remain always, even as immigrant
settlers, bound with their
church, which with its tradition,
language and liturgy, is
for them a spiritual legacy
that continually refreshes
and nurtures the soul."

Japanese

Of
the 54,000 Canadians wholly
or partly of Japanese origin,
31,000, or about 57%,
lived in Western Canada
at the time of the 1986
census. Many Japanese Canadians
are found in the major western
cities, with over 15,000
in Vancouver. This shows
a significant dispersal,
since in 1941 95% of Canada’s
23,450 Japanese lived in
British Columbia.

Immigration
from Japan began in 1877,
nine years after the Emperor
Meiji ascended the Japanese
throne. He actively encouraged
trade and travel with the
West. The first immigrant,
Manzo Nagano, settled in
British Columbia. By 1896,
approximately 1,000 Japanese,
mostly males, were working
in British Columbia in fishing,
mining, logging, railway
construction and farming.
By 1911, the community had
grown to about 9,000.

Active
discrimination against Japanese
began in 1895 when the British
Columbia legislature took
away the vote from Japanese
Canadians. They remained
disenfranchised for over
fifty years. In 1907, at
Ottawa’s insistence, the
Japanese government agreed
to limit the number of male
immigrants to 400 pen year.
In the same year, a mob
fired up by anti-Asian agitators
who wanted to keep British
Columbia white, attacked
the Japanese and Chinese
parts of Vancouver. In 1928,
Japan agreed to reduce the
how of immigrants even further
to 150 persons yearly. Japanese
Canadians, whether immigrants
called Issei or Canadian
born called Nisei, were
also excluded by provincial
law from most professions,
the provincial public service
and teaching. The minimum
wage law of the province
authorized a substantially
smaller wage for Asian Canadians.

British
Columbia remained essentially
a ghetto for Japanese Canadians
throughout the 1920s and
1930s. Even those who had
fought for Canada in World
War I were denied the vote.
Ottawa exacerbated the already
poor conditions in the 1920’s,
as historian Ann Sunahara
points out, "[by limiting]
the number of fishing licences
to Japanese Canadians, thus
denying many Japanese Canadians
their traditional livelihood.
During the Great Depression,
Japanese Canadians received
only a fraction of the social
assistance that white applicants
received and medical facilities
were segregated." Second-generation
Japanese Canadians with
university degrees found
themselves unemployable
on the coast except as store
clerks within the Japanese
community or as labourers
in sawmills and pulp mills.

The
meagre economic gains of
Japanese Canadians, won
through 40 years of hard
labour, vanished swiftly
after Japan’s attack on
Pearl Harbour in late 1941.
Pushed by the scapegoat-seeking
and profoundly racist Ian
Mackenzie, British Columbia’s
representative in the Mackenzie
King cabinet, the federal
cabinet twelve weeks later
ordered 20,881 Japanese
Canadians removed from all
locations within 160 kilometers
of the Pacific coast. The
pretext was "national security."
The decision was opposed,
as Sunahara puts it, "by
Canada’s senior military
and police officers and
by senior civil servants.
The Royal Canadian Mounted
Police, aware that Japanese
Canadians were controlled
from within by their own
leaders, was confident that
they presented no danger
of sabotage. The military
in Ottawa were equally confident,
having long recognized the
practical impossibility
of an invasion of Canada’s
Pacific Coast."

First,
thousands of women and children,
most born in Canada, were
held in the barns of Vancouver’s
Pacific National Exhibition
while the men were sent
to road camps. Later, 12,000
were confined in detention
camps in the British Columbia
interior. Some kept their
families together by volunteering
to work as sugar beet labourers
in Alberta and Manitoba.
In 1943, the cabinet authorized
the Custodian of Enemy Property
to sell Japanese Canadian
farms, homes and fishing
boats for fire sale prices,
to deduct a disposal fee,
and retain from what was
left whatever had been paid
to the detainees to buy
necessities in the camps.
In the spring of 1945, the
inmates of detention camps
were offered a choice by
Ottawa: immediate resettlement
in Central Canada or repatriation
to a then-starving Japan
at an unspecified date.
In despair, and to keep
their poorly paying jobs
in the detention camps,
almost 7,000 Japanese Canadians
over sixteen signed repatriation
forms. With their 3,500
dependents they represented
43% of Canada’s citizens
of Japanese origin. In November
1945, well after Japan’s
surrender and six weeks
after refusal by the House
of Commons to give the Cabinet
the authority to deport
any resident of Canada,
the King cabinet ordered
the deportation of 10,000
Japanese Canadians. While
lawyers argued the matter
in the courts and the Canadian
public strongly protested,
2,000 Japanese with an equal
number of dependents despaired
of reestablishing themselves
in Canada and sailed for
Japan. Another 4,700 chose
resettlement cast of Alberta.
By 1947, when Ottawa finally
withdrew the deportation
threat, only about 6,800
Japanese Canadians were
left in British Columbia.
The social and career losses,
humiliation and shame could
never be removed. Only in
1949 were the remaining
restrictions lifted from
Japanese Canadians and full
voting rights obtained.

Since
the Second World War, Japanese
Canadians have become Canada’s
third most highly educated
and prosperous minority
after the Jews and the Chinese.
Their restraint, perseverance,
hard work and educational
achievements allowed the
Canadian-born Nisei, in
the 1950s, to win their
rightful place in all fields
of Western Canada society.
Today they are notable in
the professions, trade,
businesses and the arts.
In 1981, 20% of Japanese
Canadians had some university
education compared with
only 16% of the Canadian
population as a whole.

In
1988, after years of lobbying,
Japanese Canadians won from
the Mulroney government
a long overdue apology on
behalf of their fellow citizens
and a compensation package
for internment survivors.
One of the worst periods
in our national history
had finally been addressed.

Jews

Approximately
35,000 of the 246,000 Canadians
who indicated a solely Jewish
origin in the 1986 census
live in Western Canada.
Virtually all of them live
in larger cities, especially
Vancouver and Winnipeg.
Mother 27,000 of part Jewish
origin live in the West.
As most demographers define
Jewishness as essentially
a religious identity, Canadian
Jews should probably not
be described as an ethno-cultural
community at all. Fully
a quarter of respondents
to the 1961 national census
giving Jewish as their religion
refused to designate it
as their cultural origin
as well. On the other hand,
most of the Jewish community
across Canada today was
formed by immigration between
1880 and 1930 of families
from Eastern Europe who
shared a common orthodox
Jewish faith. Later immigrants
also shared a fairly homogeneous
cultural origin.

Jewish
immigration to Western Canada
before 1930, when the Great
Depression all but ended
immigration from anywhere,
originated largely in the
Pale of Settlement located
on the western extremities
of the Russian empire. It
had been established in
the late eighteenth century
to prevent Polish and White
Russian Jews from moving
into the heartland of Russia.
Punitive taxation, a system
of permanent military conscription
for Jewish sons, the sudden
expulsion of Jews from Moscow,
and the pogroms (attacks
on Jewish persons and property)
by officials of the Czar
left approximately 100,000
Russian Jews homeless in
the years 1881-82 alone.
World War I and the 1917
Russian Revolution proved
even more calamitous because
most East European Jews
then lived in the Pale at
the centre of the German-Russian
slaughter. As many as 250,000
Jewish civilians were killed
or starved or froze to death
between 1914 and 1918.

Between
1933 and 1939, anti-semitism
in Ottawa’s political and
bureaucratic circles barred
all but about 4,000 Jews
from entering Canada from
Hitler’s Europe. Bernard
Vigod, the historian, reminds
us that Canada’s performance
here "compares most unfavourably
with that of other countries
in the Western Hemisphere."
After 1948, a wave of displaced
persons, including Jews
who miraculously survived
the Holocaust, were allowed
into Canada. Nearly 7,000
Hungarian Jews arrived after
the 1956 Hungarian uprising
and another 8,000 have come
from the Soviet Union. Thousands
more came during the 1960’s
from Islamic countries.

In
Western Canada, as Stuart
Rosenberg points out in
his book, The Jewish
Community in Canada, "Western
Jews in Saskatchewan, Alberta
and British Columbia feel
themselves to be part of
a single, closely knit regional
family. No matter where
they go or how far from
home they wander, these
Western Canadian Jews always
remain ‘Westerners’....
Canadian Jews in the West
usually do not suffer from
problems of ‘Jewish identity’."

Their
settlement in the West began
in 1883 when 1,300 attempted
to farm at New Jerusalem
near Moosomin, Saskatchewan.
It became a nightmare because
of bad luck, poor organization
and lack of farming experience
by the participants. A devastating
fire, drought and early
frosts finally proved too
much for the colony. Later
settlements in Saskatchewan
and Alberta, notably Hirsch,
Edenbridge and Sonnenfeld,
were successful, but by
the 1920’s most Jewish settlers
had become tradesmen and
store-keepers in cities
and towns. Concern about
maintaining their faith
in isolated rural communities
was another reason why most
western Jews moved to larger
centres.

In
Western Canada today, as
for the community at large,
Jewish assimilation has
fortunately not reached
American levels. The influx
of new Jewish immigrants
since 1948, many of whom
are actively religious,
provided a new impetus to
Jewish life. Vigod and many
others, myself included,
contend our English-French
language duality has provided
part of an ideological basis
for our cultural heterogeneity
which makes it perfectly
healthy to wear one’s ethno-cultural
identity proudly. A network
of educational, cultural,
welfare, recreational, community
service and religious institutions
have provided strong support
to the maintenance of Jewish
identity even in smaller
western centres. In addition,
the Universalist notion
of the 1950s and 1960s in
which modernity implied
being "universal" rather
than culturally "parochial"
has melted away. Finally,
six million Jewish deaths
in the Holocaust and the
determination of Jews everywhere
not to provide Hitler any
posthumous victories, combined
with the generally hostile
treatment of Israel in the
western media and academic
circles since the 1970s,
is a major impetus to solidarity
among Western Canadian Jews.

A
common misconception in
Central Canada about Albertans
since the advent of James
Keegstra is that anti-Semites
and other bigots are somehow
more numerous in our region
than elsewhere in Canada.
A study by the Institute
for Social Research at Toronto’s
York University published
in April, 1988, indicates
in fact that the lowest
levels of anti-Semitic sentiment
are found in prairie Canada
and British Columbia.

True,
the survey also indicates
that unacceptable levels
of prejudice of all kinds
still exist across Canada,
but Westerners are showing
leadership in the need for
tolerance and mutual respect.
A 1987 study on anti-semitism
by the B’nai Brith suggests
an important reason for
a national war on illiteracy:
"The highest levels of prejudice
are found among people who
are, by some definition,
illiterate."

English

Early
contributions to the Western
Canadian mosaic were made
by the English, who since
the time of the earliest
European visits have formed
a large proportion of the
West’s population. The 1986
census locates within Western
Canada approximately 1.4
million persons who gave
a single family origin as
English. If Westerners claiming
part English origin are
included in the English
group, it comes to another
1.7 million people. Almost
three in seven Western Canadians
therefore have a little,
some, or solely English
blood in their veins.

The
first English contact with
Canada was made through
an Italian explorer, Giovanni
Caboto, who was hired by
authorities in London to
find the Northwest Passage
to the Orient. His discovery
of Newfoundland’s Grand
Banks led to much further
English exploration in North
America. From the standpoint
of Western Canada, Henry
Hudson’s discovery of Hudson
Bay in 1610 was especially
important. The incorporation
of the Hudson’s Bay Company
in 1670 by Prince Rupert,
a cousin of England’s King
Charles II, and others became
another major catalyst.
The travels of English explorers
Out of Hudson Bay included
Samuel Hearne’s voyage down
the Coppermine River to
the Arctic Ocean in 1771-72,
Henry Kelsey’s wanderings
during 1690 across our prairies,
and Anthony Henday’s sighting
of the Rockies in 1754.
In the late 1770’s, the
English sea captain, James
Cook, explored our western
coastline. At Nootka Sound,
he traded with Indians and
claimed the region for England.
George Vancouver, who had
accompanied Cook, later
returned with more English
ships to chart the coast
of what became British Columbia
and to recapture English
property taken earlier by
the Spanish.

The
influx of English loyalists
into Eastern and Central
Canada at the time of the
American Revolution transformed
a sparsely-populated Upper
Canada (now Ontario) and
Atlantic region into predominantly
English communities. This
new reality would encourage
countless English newcomers
to relocate to many parts
of Canada, including the
West. Between 1815 and 1855,
almost a million British
emigrants, many of whom
were English, landed in
British North America. Many
of them, or their children,
came west once the completion
of the railway made homesteads
on the Prairies accessible.
Many others, fleeing a suffocating
English class structure
and limited economic opportunities,
went directly from Liverpool
or London to the "last,
best West" in Canada. In
1906 alone, 65,000 mostly
English immigrants arrived
from Britain; by 1913, the
figure had reached 113,000.
After World War I, the English
government itself assisted
another 130,000 of its citizens
to settle in Canada.

The
English adjustment to frontier
life in Western Canada was
assisted by the common use
of their language in the
region, although Canadian
usage was often very different
from that at home. There
were many other new things
for the English pioneers
to learn as well, such as
using western tack for horses,
ploughing straight furrows,
and wearing denim instead
of tweed. Western historian
Gerald Friesen states: "Like
members of other ethnic
groups, the English tended
to marry their own, to locate
in boarding-houses run by
their countrymen, to congregate
in certain areas of the
cities, and to support their
own football teams, music
halls, and fish and chip
shops. One bastion of their
community was the Church
of England, the prairie
branch of which was dominated
by English immigrants after
1900.... They sponsored
their own when openings
came up in a mine or plant,
and they dominated the hiring
system in such companies
as the T. Eaton Company
department stores and the
CPR shops."

The
English immigrants had a
major impact on the West,
especially in our cities,
where they erected many
of the buildings and houses.
Their influence on western
politics and trade unions
was also important because
they came from so many walks
of life. Their weight was
especially felt in Canada’s
strong role in both world
wars. Howard Palmer’s comment
about the English newcomers
in Alberta is probably equally
true for all four western
provinces. The English presence,
he notes, was "evident in
the creation of a skilled
labour force in the urban
areas before World War I,
and in the early strength
of labour unions and socialist
parties in the cities, and
mining settlements.... The
British influence also contributed
to the numerical and social
prominence of the Anglican,
Presbyterian and Methodist
churches and to the imported
class distinctions which
some tried to introduce
in a city like Calgary before
World War I.

In
the post-World War II period,
more English immigrants,
including many war brides,
came to Western Canada.
In 1957 alone, 75,546 English
immigrants arrived in Canada;
in our centennial year,
more than 43,000, although
the numbers have fallen
off greatly since. The major
English contributions to
Western Canada include the
common law and court systems
used in all four provinces
and both northern territories
and our system of parliamentary
democracy. The Red Cross,
Boy Scout and Girl Guide
movements all came from
England. English influence
remains important in many
facets of Western Canadian
life, from industry and
government to commerce,
the professions and the
performing arts.

Arabs

In
1986, approximately a seventh
of the 100,000 Canadians
giving their single or partial
family origin as the Arabian
Peninsula lived in Western
Canada. Alberta ranked third
after Ontario and Quebec
as their favoured province.

The
first Arab immigrant, Abraham
Bounadere, reached Montreal
in 1882; virtually all those
who followed him before
World War I came from Syria
and what is now Lebanon.
Arab immigration in effect
stopped altogether in 1908
when the government of Wilfrid
Laurier, seeking to terminate
immigration from China and
Japan, ordered that all
newcomers from "Asia" must
have at least $200 on arrival
in Canada. In an act of
blatant bureaucratic racism,
immigration officials extended
the measure so as to include
immigrants arriving from
the then mostly destitute
Arab world. In 1913, the
superintendent of immigration,
rebuffing a campaign to
establish that Arab nations
were not Asian, cited unfavourable
comments about Syrians from
Strangers Within Our
Gates, an astonishingly
racist book by the Winnipeg
clergyman and superintendent
of All Peoples Mission Church,
and future CCF national
leader, James S. Woodsworth,
as a reason neither to change
the offensive order-in-council
nor to alter his bizarre
interpretation of it.

There
was little improvement in
the prospects for Arabs
seeking to come to Canada
until Prime Ministers John
Diefenbaker in 1962 and
Lester Pearson in 1967 reformed
our immigration policy.
A trickle of less than a
thousand Arab immigrants
arriving between 1911 and
1961 grew to a flood of
many thousands thereafter.
Most came from Egypt, but
smaller numbers came from
Lebanon, Morocco, Syria,
Jordan, Tunisia and other
Arab countries.

The
first decade of the twentieth
century established the
Arab communities in Western
Canada. Winnipeg and Edmonton
were the most popular population
centres, but small groups
settled in Vancouver, Calgary
and Saskatoon. Others homesteaded
near Saskatoon and Swift
Current in Saskatchewan,
Lac la Biche in Alberta,
and in Manitoba. Arab-Canadian
institutions were usually
founded in larger cities.
An exception was Lac La
Biche, where the success
of a hundred Arab families
in fur trading and mink
ranching allowed the building
of an impressive mosque
which continues to astonish
visitors. The Al-Rashid
Mosque, built in Edmonton
in 1938, was the first mosque
built in Canada.

Despite
early immigration barriers,
Canada is now a preferred
country of immigration for
Arabs. More recent waves
of immigrants have included
both Muslims and Christians
from various lands. Most
are highly-educated and
skilled. They have achieved
prominence in virtually
all occupational fields
in Western Canada. Preservation
of culture and language
remains very important for
Arab Westerners because
many in the community hold
strongly to religion and
traditional heritage. The
earlier assimilation of
some young Arabs to more
homogeneous Western Canadian
values appears to have been
offset by a recent large
wave of Lebanese immigrants
who prefer more traditional
linguistic and cultural
values.

Baha
Abu-Laban, a University
of Alberta sociology professor
and author of a book on
Arabs in Canada, An Olive
Branch on the Family Tree,
concludes: "Arab Canadians
have contributed significantly
to the development of this
country; this is as much
true of the early peddlers
as of the skilled labourers,
business people, professionals
and semi-professionals of
today. The names of Arab
Canadians who have achieved
prominence in their respective
occupations are to be found
in virtually all fields.
In return, Canada has contributed
toward the realization of
what was a dream for many
Arab Canadians of their
immigrant forebears: economic
well-being and financial
security." Western Canadians
of Arab origins must now
ensure that the olive branch
remains an important feature
of the regional family tree.

Poles

The
Polish presence in the West,
although originally not
great in number or conspicuous
in character, dates back
to when the region was being
opened. There were Poles
in Lord Selkirk’s expeditions
to Manitoba in 1815 and
1817 to protect Red River
settlers. Edwin Brokowski
became editor and owner
of The Manitoba Gazette
in Winnipeg in the 1870s;
Karol Horecki conducted
geographical studies in
the Rocky Mountains at the
Peace River watershed and
prepared, in the years 1870-1880,
the technical documentation
of the Peace River region
for the CPR.

Today,
approximately 83,000 Canadians
declaring Poland to be their
only place of origin live
in Western Canada. This
is a little less than forty
percent of sole-origin Polish
Canadians, whereas about
half of all Canadians claiming
part Polish origin live
in the West. Combining the
two groups of Poles produces
some impressive numbers
in major western cities:
Vancouver has 36,000, Edmonton
43,000, Calgary 24,000,
Regina 10,000, Saskatoon
10,000, and Winnipeg 46,000.

At
one time Poland, in union
with Lithuania, was a major
Central European power.
During the Renaissance,
Poland’s most glorious period,
the persecution of religious
minorities so prevalent
in other European nations
was largely absent. For
example, when Jews were
persecuted in Western Europe
and were driven out of Spain,
Portugal, England and the
German principalities, they
found shelter in Poland.
By the late 1700’s, however,
a combination of aggression
by close neighbours and
various internal problems
led to a series of partitions
of Poland. These events
resulted in considerable
emigration. Ottawa’s Dominion
Lands Act of 1872, which
made easier the founding
of prairie homesteads, at
first attracted only a few
Poles to Western Canada.
Only at the turn of the
century did Clifford Sifton’s
recruitment in Europe attract
large numbers of them. An
estimated 115,000 Polish
settlers came to Canada
between 1896 and 1918, mostly
from the Austria-dominated
province of Galicia. Most
of these came west.

Following
World War I and the formation
of the Polish republic,
which established a consulate
in Winnipeg, more Polish
farmers began to arrive
in Western Canada. By 1931,
there were 145,000 Poles
spread across the nation.
Their immigration slowed
considerably during the
Depression and the Second
World War. Only 800 Poles
came between 1940 and 1945,
mostly engineers and technicians.
Afterwards Polish immigration
exploded. In 1946, 4,500
Polish ex-servicemen who
had fought with the Allies
came to Canada under a special
order-in-council, and 36,500
displaced Poles were also
admitted. Another 14,000
came later, either as normal
immigrants or as visitors
who were allowed to remain
in Canada as immigrants.
Many of this group were
highly educated, but nonetheless
encountered traces of the
earlier prejudice against
Central Europeans in parts
of Canada, including the
West.

Between
1953 and 1971, approximately
55,000 Poles came to Canada,
many having first moved
to the United Kingdom and
Western Europe. The Communist
regime in Poland in power
since 1945 banned emigration
until 1956, when a new government
allowed the sponsoring of
relatives. Polish Canadians
were very proud when in
1981 Poland became the first
communist country with a
free trade union movement
(now outlawed). Canadians
have become acutely aware
that the Poles have shown
great political courage
fighting a totalitarian
regime for their civil rights.
A large number of Poles,
estimated at 5,036 persons,
came to Canada during the
period of Solidarity between
1980 and late 1981, and
some 33,500 by the end of
1987. Most of these were
both highly trained and
convinced democrats.

Roman
Catholic and other churches
helped many Poles in Western
Canada to adjust to their
new surroundings. Indeed,
the earliest families arriving
organized themselves around
the church. The Oblate fathers
founded a number of Polish
churches in Western Canada.
Later, Polish Westerners
formed other cultural, social
and economic organizations.
Community halls in every
major western centre were
completed through levies
or members’ dances and picnics.
Polish credit unions were
established across Canada.
Much emphasis was also given
by Polish parishes to maintaining
the language of the motherland
among the children of immigrants.
Polish history, folk songs,
dances and customs were
also taught in parish schools.
Scouting became a major
youth activity and other
youth clubs were also founded.
Polish ex-service men and
women have also ensured
that veterans’ organizations
serving both sexes have
become important parts of
community life.

It
would appear that the present
cohesion of Western Canadian
Poles will ensure a vibrant
future. Their community
possesses an abundance of
intellectual and historical
resources to resist assimilation
even if fewer and fewer
of them live outside our
major metropolitan centres.
As ever before, the Canadians
of Polish descent are vitally
interested in maintaining
their cultural heritage
in their new homeland and
passing it on to both the
younger generation and other
Canadians. Westerners of
Polish descent have contributed
greatly to the West’s prosperity
and cultural heritage, first
through the toil and sacrifice
of the pioneers who helped
to conquer the wilderness,
clear the land and establish
communities, and later through
the efforts and achievements
of those working in fields
such as technology, law,
medicine, education and
the arts.

Germans

In
the 1986 census, 556,000
residents of the four western
provinces reported only
a German origin and another
805,000 indicated Germany
figured in their origins.
On a single-origin basis,
they are thus second only
to the English as the largest
ethno-cultural group in
all four western provinces.
Most of them, like German-Canadians
generally, immigrated from
areas other than Germany
itself; from Estonia in
the north to the Black Sea
in the south, from Alsace
on the west to the Caspian
Sea on the east. The Austro-Hungarian
and Russian empires together
provided to Western Canada
a wide diversity in German-speaking
settlers: Protestants and
Roman Catholics, Mennonites
and Hutterites, city dwellers
and farmers, High and Low
German-speaking. This diversity,
combined with world political
events, appears to have
been a major obstacle to
establishing a more cohesive
German identity across Canada.

The
first German-speaking settlers
were known to live in the
West as early as the 1820s
at Red River; however, it
was not until the 1870s
that a significant wave
of German-speaking immigrants
flowed into the Canadian
West. Between 1874 and 1880,
approximately 7,000 Mennonites
from Southern Russia were
allotted two exclusive tracts
of land in southern Manitoba.
The growing pan-Slav nationalism
of the czars drove them
to Western Canada and they
would long remain aloof
from the godlessness and
materialism they found on
the Prairies. Villages,
not homesteads, became their
unit of farm production.
The Mennonites prospered,
but in 1916 some of them,
refusing to accept a Manitoba
school measure which made
it compulsory for instruction
to take place in English,
left for Mexico and Paraguay.
Their vacated land was in
turn taken up by a new wave
of Mennonites fleeing the
civil war in the Soviet
Ukraine. Eventually, as
Gerald Friesen notes, their
"village agricultural systems
and the separate school
were things of the past;
the language and the faith
remained."

In
the period from 1880 to
1910, numerous German-speaking
immigrants, most fleeing
the growing shortage of
land in Europe, joined the
westward flood and became
especially popular as newcomers
to the West. By 1914, approximately
35,000 had settled in Manitoba.
In Saskatchewan, the number
of German residents ballooned
from less than 5,000 in
1901 to more than 100,000
in 1911. In British Columbia,
the first large-scale German
immigration began with the
Fraser Valley gold rush
in 1858. Few made fortunes
in either that gold rush
or the later one in the
Cariboo Mountains, but most
stayed to become successful
grocers, farmers, craftsmen,
shopkeepers and brewers.
By 1911, the German population
of British Columbia was
about 12,000. Immigration
from Germany itself fell
sharply between the outbreak
of World War! and 1927,
when Germany was re-admitted
to a "favoured nation" status,
but between 1919 and 1935
about 100,000 German-speaking
immigrants arrived from
the Soviet Union, Poland,
Austria, Czechoslovakia
and Germany. Most were farmers
who settled on the Prairies.

The
First World War marked the
end of the first phase of
German immigration and the
beginning of a period of
anti-German sentiment. The
reversal in public opinion
across Canada about Canadian
Germans during World War
I was astonishing in both
its severity and its speed.
A highly-praised community
of residents suddenly faced
both official and unofficial
discrimination. German Canadians
lost jobs in the early years
of the war. There was also
abuse, sometimes physical,
at the hands of returned
soldiers. More than 8,000
German Canadians and Austm-Hungarians
were eventually detained
at internment camps located
on the Prairies, and in
British Columbia and northwestern
Ontario. Most were released
by 1916 when manpower became
short. By 1921 many German-speaking
Canadians were even reluctant
to admit their German origin.
For example, the number
of Manitobans indicating
a German origin in 1921
had declined by an astonishing
43% since 1911; in British
Columbia the percentage
drop over the same period
was 38%.

In
the late 1930s, there was
a pitifully small flow of
about 5,000 Jewish refugees
from Nazi Germany into Canada.
A group of 1,000 Sudeten
Social Democrats reached
Canada from Czechoslovakia
in 1939, many settling on
abandoned farms in northern
Saskatchewan and on uncleared
land in north-eastern British
Columbia. Adolf Hitler and
his Third Reich in fact
repelled the vast majority
of the German population
in Western Canada, as elsewhere
in Canada, despite the best
efforts of a pro-Hitler
German Consul in Winnipeg.
Only a small group of recent
German immigrants in the
West, who were shaken by
the stresses of the Depression,
were attracted to the Reich.
Most of the community remained
loyal to their adopted country
and many volunteered in
the Allied cause during
World War II. The community’s
financial support for the
Allied war effort equalled
that of other ethnocultural
communities. Most of the
800 German-Canadians interned
at the start of the war
had been released by 1941.
The wartime hostility to
German-Canadians was in
fact considerably less than
during World War I.

At
the end of World War II,
numerous German-speaking
refugees from Romania, Yugoslavia
and Austria-Hungary came
to Canada, many to the West.
When the ban on immigration
of German nationals, in
force from 1939 to 1950,
was finally lifted their
numbers increased dramatically.
Between 1951 and 1960, an
estimated 250,000 German
immigrants reached Canada
as a whole. By the time
of the 1971 census, persons
of German origin had become
the second largest ethno-cultural
group in British Columbia,
Alberta and Saskatchewan.
In 1981, almost 95% of those
of German origin indicated
that English was their daily
language.

Canadians
of German origin have contributed
greatly to all facets of
Western Canadian life. For
example, few Canadians in
the West or elsewhere realize
that it was the early German
settlers who introduced
to Canada the endearing
tradition of the lighted
Christmas tree. Agriculture,
science, business, the arts,
politics and the professions
have felt the positive impact
of the Germ an-Canadian
presence.

French
and Western Bilingualism

It
is often forgotten that
French was used in much
of Western Canada for most
of two centuries. The French
and French Canadians were
the second founding cultural
groups of Western Canada,
after the aboriginal peoples:
in the 1700s explorers,
traders, and canoeists made
French the first European
language to be spoken on
the Canadian Prairies. At
Fort Edmonton, so many Hudson’s
Bay Company employees were
French Canadians and Métis
that French was the most
commonly spoken language
there until as late as the
mid- 1800’s. French communities
were established and flourished
throughout north-central
Alberta, in southern Saskatchewan
and in British Columbia.
In 1818, French Canadians
founded St. Boniface, which
is now part of metropolitan
Winnipeg, and it remains
the major focus of French
language and culture in
the West.

For
various reasons, however,
most French-speaking Quebeckers
with wanderlust just could
not be persuaded to move
west in large numbers. Some
preferred the proximity
of Quebec’s own northern
frontier on the Canadian
shield; others opted for
jobs in the factories and
mills of nearby New England.
By 1900, more than a million
French Canadians were living
in America. Railway fares
to the West were higher
for people from Quebec than
for newcomers from Europe,
who got special rates, and
many Quebeckers were also
discouraged by reports about
Louis Riel’s problems in
1869-70, the acrimonious
debates about his amnesty,
and the 1885 North-West
Rebellion.

Nor
was the reported treatment
of the French language and
Roman Catholicism in the
West encouraging. In the
North-West Territories Act
of 1875, the Canadian Parliament
allowed for the use of French
in the legislative council
and courts, and authorized
the right to organize Roman
Catholic schools in which
French could be the language
of instruction. In 1890,
the Manitoba legislature,
by then dominated by English-speaking
Protestants, eliminated
both the language and Catholic
school rights of its French-speaking
minority, restoring them
partly in 1897 only to abolish
them again in 1916. In 1892,
the Assembly of the North-West
Territories voted to make
English its sole language
and later in the same year
ordered that French could
henceforth be used only
in the first two or three
years of school for children
who spoke no other language.
The thousands of Protestant
Ontarians arriving in the
West after 1890 were for
the most part convinced
that the region must be
made "British."

The
perceived lack of congeniality
in the West to French-speaking
Canadians resulted in there
being only 23,000 of them
living throughout the Prairies
by 1901. The U.S. census
of 1900 reported that one-third
of all French Canadians
on the continent lived south
of the Canadian border.
One of the great "ifs" of
our national history is
this: had French Canadian
migration gone to Western
Canada instead of the United
States, might some of our
historical language and
cultural difficulties never
have arisen?

In
Western Canada, English
as a common linguistic currency
became ascendant; by the
end of the First World War,
legislation and official
policy throughout the region
had severely suppressed
the use of French in official
and school spheres. By 1916,
there were only 25,000 Albertans
of French origin in a total
provincial population of
about half a million. Newcomers
to the West from everywhere,
including Quebec, were told
bluntly that English was
the only language of the
region. The strong bilingual
origins of Western Canada
were thus forgotten by many
and never known by many
newcomers to the region.

By
the 1971 national census,
more than forty ethno-cultural
communities were identified
in the four western provinces.
The mother tongue of 79.4%
of Westerners in 1986 was
English, for two percent
it was French, and 14.4%
of Western Canadians, or
approximately a million
persons, spoke a mother
tongue other than the two
official languages.

Long-stilled
language tensions reignited
throughout the West during
the late 1960s and 1970s
as residents became isolated
from Central Canada on a
range of issues. This was
accompanied by a growing
conviction that the Trudeau
government was preoccupied
with Quebec and was ignoring
legitimate concerns in the
West. The election of the
separatist Parti Québécois
to office in Quebec City
in late 1976 fostered even
greater attention in Ottawa
circles to Quebeckers.

The
implementation of federal
official bilingualism following
Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s
Royal Commission on Bilingualism
and Biculturalism (a title
which itself bothered many
Westerners) in fact awakened
Western Canada to its own
cultural distinctiveness.
How were we to weave official
bilingualism into the vibrant
multicultural reality present
throughout the region? An
essentially bicultural federal
thrust seemed to collide
with western reality.

The
notion of two founding peoples
never found much support
among Westerners. Official
bilingualism was seen by
some as special treatment
afforded by Ottawa to an
important linguistic community
that was, nonetheless, neither
as numerous as nor more
concentrated than, say,
those of Ukrainian, German,
or Scandinavian origin.
How could one enhance French
language rights within the
region on any but a national
unity basis? The bilingualism
issue in essence was, and
remains, a matter of reconciling
national obligations with
a distinctive regional demography.

Too
little effort was made by
Ottawa during the 1970s
to explain the rationale
or political necessity for
the Official Languages Act.
A good deal of insensitivity
by Ottawa officials was
demonstrated towards the
multicultural character
of the West; official bilingualism
came to be perceived by
many as a policy of, by,
and for the benefit of "eastern
elites."

"When
you call the public affairs
branch of the federal transport
department in Edmonton,"
an Albertan told me recently,
"the telephone is answered
in both languages. When
I did the same thing in
Montreal, the response was
in French only." The widespread
awareness in the West that
Quebec is now officially
unilingual at the provincial
level makes such occurrences
of federal insensitivity
even more annoying to Western
Canadians.

The
recently passed amendments
to the Official Languages
Act (Bill C-72) were characterized
by some as an anti-western
measure because more federal
management positions, including
some in the West itself,
appeared likely to pass
out of reach for all but
the less than ten percent
of Westerners who are functionally
bilingual in the two favoured
languages. No longer, they
argued, would as many of
the best qualified candidates
for federal positions be
able to take language training
once in a job because the
pool of bilingual people
(almost always from outside
Western Canada) was now
large enough to reduce in
practice the number of appointments
of unilingual people to
bilingual posts.

It
should be emphasized that
many cultural communities
in the West do not feel
the Meech Lake accord fully
recognizes our multicultural
reality. Ihor Broda, a Westerner
and vice-president of the
Ukrainian Canadian Committee,
articulated the concerns
of many Western Canadians
to the Special Joint Committee
of Parliament on the 1987
Constitutional Accord: "We
believe that our constitution
must reflect the reality
of Canada as it is today.
[A] major weakness of the
accord is its failure to
recognize the fact that
Canada is both a multicultural
and officially bilingual
society.... In our view,
it is inaccurate to describe
Canada just in terms of
the two predominant languages
spoken."

David
Bai, a prairies vice-chairman
of the Canadian Multiculturalism
Council and one of the authors
of the recently-enacted
federal Multiculturalism
Act, sees cultural pluralism
which includes regional
and cultural diversity as
the West’s true identity.
In the absence of greater
heritage language rights
for all under the Charter
of Rights, he believes official
bilingualism in practice
promotes biculturalism,
which is contrary to the
intent of both the Charter
of Rights and Freedoms and
the principles of multiculturalism.
"If we are truly a nation
which has two official languages,"
Bai argues, "yet accepts
the principles of a multilingual,
multiracial, multicultural
society, then we must introduce
a Multicultural Act along
with an amended Citizenship
Act to properly translate
the policy mandate as stated
by this and former governments."

I
agree with Bai that this
is ultimately the best way
to have the two official
languages accepted across
the West. The debate sparked
by the Saskatchewan and
Alberta government language
announcements and Bill C-72
has obviously renewed language
tensions in the West, at
least temporarily. Not a
few Westerners challenged
the need for extending the
Official Languages Act in
the region; weary francophone
communities in the two prairie
provinces protested the
repeal of Section 110 of
the North-West Territories
Act requiring statutes to
be translated into French.
Francophones in Western
Canada would also appear
to be anxious to have more
say than they do now in
the way official bilingualism
is implemented by Ottawa
in the West.

In
my view, federal official
bilingualism is essential
to our survival as one nation,
although I understand completely
the anxiety of people who
feel pressured by the stupidities
of those who administer
it. Possibly none of these
was worse than the recent
attempt to reclassify the
court registrar’s position
in Vancouver as a bilingual
one. Bilingualism will win
general acceptance ultimately
on its own merits, but attitude
cannot be legislated.

In
1981, Stanley Roberts, a
former president of the
Canada West Foundation,
noted, "It is clear that
an interesting contradiction
has developed in the West
: western alienation is
increasing while bilingual
resistance is decreasing."
Following a comprehensive
survey of western public
opinion, the Foundation
concluded during October,
1980, that 53% of those
surveyed were in favour
of entrenching language
rights in the constitution
of Canada.

Eight
years later, a majority
of Canadians in every region
appears to support official
bilingualism at the federal
level. "Our province," says
a western educator, "has
two competing language visions:
those who send their children
to French schools and believe
in official bilingualism,
versus those who want their
offspring to speak Ukrainian,
Mandarin, or whatever, as
well as English." Some in
both camps believe official
bilingualism is the rock
on which multilingualism
is also built: remove it,
and the political will to
nurture languages other
than English will be lost.
Overall, official bilingualism
at the national level as
an essential national policy
is probably questioned less
and less in the West. The
large enrolment in French
immersion schools in the
four provinces reflects
this movement.

After
three generations of language
neglect, western francophone
communities are finally
receiving better support.
In Alberta, French immersion
schools were allowed by
1976, and by 1979, forty
percent of Alberta children
whose mother tongue was
French were receiving instruction
in either bilingual or immersion
schools. The Charter of
Rights in effect since 1982
guarantees francophones
everywhere "where the number
of those children so warrants"
the right to attend publicly-supported
French schools. Since 1970,
most French-speaking Westerners
have been able to receive
all daily programming from
Radio-Canada’s television
network in Montreal. Today,
with the amendments to the
Official Languages Act passed
recently by the Mulroney
government, the prospect
of achieving the same rights
for French-speaking Westerners
as have long existed for
English-speaking Quebeckers
is a good deal brighter.

Westerners
generally now understand
better what happened to
our region’s bilingual origins,
and French, which was an
important part of earlier
western history, is being
rewoven into the regional
tapestry. Given time, intelligence
and sensitivity, western
attitudes will move further.
Extended federal and provincial
services to francophone
communities across the West
will be better accepted
by a tolerant population
if there is also ample support
given to the teaching of
other languages. Greater
language sensitivity also
remains necessary for real
success because many Westerners
distrust policies imposed
on them by legislators or
officials in Ottawa.

Westerners,
while determined to preserve
cultural heritages and our
host of languages, are moving
to provide a unique western
dimension to the concept
of an officially bilingual
nation within a multicultural
environment.

A
Concluding Comment

The
ethno-cultural profiles
in this chapter are a mere
sketch of Western Canada’s
singular mix of diverse
peoples. They are brief
of necessity, and thus do
not fully reflect any group’s
experience of settlement
in the West or integration
into the society, religion,
work, language, politics,
culture and community life
of the region. All of these
aspects are of great importance
to understanding how the
various peoples settling
the West shaped our society
and how, in turn, they were
affected by complex processes
of integration and assimilation.
Western Canada’s present
mosaic should ensure the
survival of ethnic cultures
while each group is integrated
rather than assimilated
into a larger society. "Unity
in diversity" acquired new
dimensions when applied
to western realities.

Social
theorists researching problems
of ethnicity have identified
three major benefits of
ethnic group survival for
the society. First, ethnic
group participation is essential
to individual satisfaction
and self-development. Second,
cultural pluralism is an
essential freedom. It favours
a social climate in which
cultural distinctiveness
does not restrict social
participation. Third, the
preservation of ethnic groups
benefits the society as
a whole because each culture
has a valuable contribution
to make to that society.
The interaction of diverse
groups based on the principles
of equality and mutual respect
can be a creative and enriching
social experience: each
group affects the others,
yet each maintains its distinct
identity.

Western
Canada meandered a long
way before it awoke to appreciate
the benefits of ethno-cultural
survival and began to promote
multiculturalism actively,
not so much as a government
policy but as a fact of
life.

In
the past, some groups struggled
for survival as distinct
groups in the face of a
strong pressure to assimilate
within a dominant Anglo-Canadian
culture, and also strove
for acceptance both as a
group and as individuals
-- often a painful and uphill
battle. History shows that
most communities succeeded
in maintaining their identity
and stamping it upon the
character of their new homeland.
Today, ethno-cultural groups
represented by various multicultural
organizations and individuals
face even more complex challenges
with all their subtle and
dynamic forces.

Concerned
individuals realize that
the future they face will
depend on the conscious
desire to survive as a distinct
group and on the dedicated
work of many individuals
within each group. They
closely follow the policies
of both the federal and
provincial governments on
multiculturalism, education,
human rights and immigration,
analysing the impact on
the future of their respective
groups. A large part of
their activities today is
directed to integration
of individuals and the transmission
of aspects of their culture
to the society, rather than
to the preservation of traditional
culture as such. Their work
concentrates on making their
communities fully realize
and appreciate the cultural
heritage each group carries,
reflected in a historic
memory of their pioneering
contribution to the development
of our region. Virtually
all communities agree with
a thought of Peter Savaryn,
a Ukrainian Canadian and
former chancellor of the
University of Alberta, that
our federal government must
treat "all minorities and
regions equally and justly."
He goes on: "The inter-pollination
of cultures will make Canada
great."